Glenora luxury condo towers idled for financial restructuring

Bill Mah, Edmonton Journal01.29.2014

The Glenora Skyline, a high-end condo development that was being built by a company connected with Alex Davidoff, a businessman who was briefly kidnapped last year. Construction on the project has halted.

EDMONTON - Construction has halted on Glenora Skyline, a luxury condominium project at Stony Plain Road and 142nd Street, while the development company undertakes what it calls financial restructuring.

A lawsuit and several builder’s liens have also been filed against the project, which gained notoriety last summer when its president, Alex Davidoff, was allegedly kidnapped.

Neighouring residents and commuters who pass by the site say workers have stopped showing up and the giant construction crane no longer moves. What’s left on the site is a couple of storeys of bare concrete floors and columns surrounded by hoarding.

“We are going through some restructuring in financing,” said a statement from the directors of Glenora Skyline. “The project is not dead and will go ahead. It will take two or three weeks or a month before we can reorganize ourselves to continue.”

Glenora Skyline is designed as a high-end residential and commercial complex with plans for four towers, from 18 to 21 storeys, containing 270 dwellings with townhouses and a boutique, restaurant and coffee shop at the base.

The project was initially opposed by residents worried about increased traffic and the impact of such a big project on a mature community. The project also faced delays getting zoning approval but construction eventually started.

Things took an unexpected turn in July 2013 when Davidoff, president of the Glenora Skyline Development Corp., was reported to have been kidnapped and held captive before being rescued by police in a Sherwood Park home. Two men were charged in connection with the case.

Meanwhile, the property’s land title certificate shows builder’s liens filed by six companies. A builder’s lien may be filed by a supplier or subcontractor which provided labour or materials to a construction project as a claim for money owing.

“We have asked some of them to hold off for a month or two,” said the statement from Glenora Skyline.

The land title certificate shows several mortgages on the property from non-bank lenders Seventh Street Lofts, of Edmonton; Northland Mortgage and Investment of Campbell River, B.C.; and a Montreal-based numbered company.

About 25-to 27-per-cent of the condo units have been sold and most buyers have been notified of the delay, the company said.

Glenora Skyline Development Corp. and its directors also face a $30-million lawsuit launched by Shearforce Construction Management and its sole director, Ted Chrusciel, who claims to have been a partner and played a key role in the project’s design and planning.

The suit alleges Chrusciel was conspired against, ending his involvement in the project. The claims in the lawsuit have not been proven in court.

Glenora Skyline called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said it will be contested in court.

Neighbourhood residents have been left in the dark about the fate of the project, said Glenora Community League president Diane Thomas.

“I think everybody in the neighbourhood is concerned that there’s a big crane that basically only moves once every three months,” she said. “Whether the project was supported or not supported in the community, nobody wants to have something unfinished.”

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